


Lies They Tell

by KitsuHime



Series: Stone Dreams [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 07:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12008046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsuHime/pseuds/KitsuHime
Summary: Morgan Cadash and The Iron Bull are both dirty fucking liars.





	Lies They Tell

**Author's Note:**

> So I was in a really weird place over the weekend, and things got dark. So this came out. It's full of angst and pining. It goes with my main story, but I wanted to post it separately.

When Morgan had learned that Bull could draw, and had smiled and told him what she’d glimpsed had looked really good, he had given her this look that she hadn’t quite understood at first. Then he’d smiled and put it away, and kissed her until she forgot.  She never got to see all the sketches of her.  There were more of them after that.

Bull took so many blows meant for her that she lost count, and he smiled at her every time, glancing back and making sure that she was alright. The smile was cocky, as if proving to her over and over that she didn’t have to worry, that he was tough enough to take it. 

He saw her take blows for him, diving in to cut at the enemy and draw them off while he recovered. He saw her rage when a comrade took a blow, and just how much harder she fought when the others were bleeding.  She had been hurt so badly, but her own pains never mattered.  Why did it hurt him that she put everyone before herself?

He caught her drooling on her pillow once, when she’d been full of head cold and miserable. He’d smiled. Then his heart clenched and twisted when she coughed, and when the skin around her nose turned raw.  It was a stupid cold but he was _worried_.

Morgan awoke in Bull’s empty bed once, and realized that he was at his small desk, writing. She knew he was writing a report home, and prayed that it wasn’t about her, that she could keep whatever it was they had just to themselves.  But she hated that hope, and told herself that the Ben-Hassrath knew everything.  She wasn’t angry with Bull.

Someone drowned a litter of kittens in the well in Skyhold, and Bull listened to Morgan cry for hours, whispering quiet words and holding her small hands in his. Then she ranted about trying to find a spell that kept a barrier over the well, so that living things couldn’t fall through.

The man who’d done it showed up in the infirmary the next day, nearly dead. No one knew who did it, but Bull had been seen with small cut under his eye that same morning, and healing scrapes on his knuckles.

Bull saw her laugh at something Cullen said, her eyes crinkling and bright. He felt a twisting in his stomach, and didn’t know what it was. 

Morgan asked about qunari relationships again, curious. He saw a flicker of something in her eyes when he mentioned the old story about dragon teeth, and had suddenly wondered what it would be like, to carry a piece of their time together with him after the Inquisition, to carry a little bit of Morgan back to Par Vollen. 

But that meant that there was and _end_ and for once the idea of an end _hurt_.

He saw the way she looked at a dragon, crashing over them in Western Approach, only because she was standing in front of him and turned around to watch it pass. He was so caught up in the sheer magnificence of the creature that he almost missed it.  But he saw her smile, her lips slightly parted and her eyes fucking _dancing_.  And then she’d looked at him, and the smile had turned _knowing_ , her eyes now glittering with a promise that he, for once, couldn’t read.

She knew love for what it was when they killed the dragon, when she heard Bull roar their victory, and then speak something soft as Morgan gave the dying creature a swift death. She knew that she loved that man, standing there covered in blood, some of it his, most of it belonging to the dragon.  She knew it when he pinned her against the carcass in full view of the others and kissed the life out of her.  The kiss tasted like fire, dragon blood singing in their veins.

It was beautiful, and afterwards, as he slept at her back, an arm thrown around her waist, it _hurt_.  She couldn’t cry, not out in the field where he didn’t sleep deep enough.  But the tears came anyway, silent and wet and a foolish waste of moisture in the desert. 

It was the only secret she kept from him, and it felt like clutching fire to her chest. It was warm and beautiful, but it _burned_ to get too close, to touch it, to think about it.  And she knew that if she ever tried to share that beautiful burning fire, it would go out, extinguished by a few kind words and a sad, sea-green eye. 

But he didn’t know. He still smiled at her, still made stupid jokes and innuendo because everyone knew at this point, and no one seemed to care.  Cassandra’s lingering looks hurt though.  They were soft, almost like the looks she gave Josephine when she thought no one was looking.  To see that look brushing over either her or Bull cut deeply, but she had always been good at pretending.

Morgan kept smiling. She pretended it didn’t hurt when he kissed her softly, that she didn’t cry when she was alone.  She pretended everything was the same, and let him kiss and touch and fuck her like they had from the beginning. 

She loved him. Maker, she loved him more than anything. 

But Bull was a Qunari, a _proper_ fucking qunari, who didn’t _do_ romance, or love. 

But he was her friend, and what they had was good and safe and perfect.

And she _needed_ it.

It might have been selfish, but she would lie to Bull’s face if it meant she could keep what they had, what she needed.

Morgan had always been good at lying.

Bull didn’t know what love was, not really. He knew what people _said_ it was, what they would assume ‘Kadan’ meant if he bothered to give a translation.  But that wasn’t what he did.  It wasn’t what Morgan needed.  But that didn’t change what she was to him.

There was no singular moment when she became Kadan. He just simply realized that she mattered more to him than some of the others.  And it wasn’t like the Chargers.  He’d fought alongside her just like them, killed and survived with her like with them.  But she wasn’t Kadan like they were.

Morgan’s Kadan was singular, a place he’d never thought to find himself resting. She was a place he didn’t have to pretend, where he didn’t have to read and react just to play a role.  She knew what he was, who he’d been, and still laughed and kissed him.  Still slid into his lap like a fucking cat and left a trail of bites now his neck and chest. 

She knew what he could do with a single hand, still let him tie her up, let him wrap his fingers around her throat when she had no way to stop him. She looked at him with trusting eyes, and all he wanted to do was kiss her.

There were days when he wanted no more than to stay in bed with her, to just pull the covers back up and pretend that there weren’t Rifts to close and an ancient Magister to vanquish. He’d liked lovers plenty before, but wanted to just _spend the day_ with them, nothing to do with sex or games leading up to sex… it was strange.  So he made it a game, lingering in her rooms naked afterwards, laughing joking, or just relaxing.

He watched her put hours into her crochet, turning the wool into works of art or purely utilitarian items. She was Kadan in the way she swore when a difficult stitch slipped off the hook, or groaned when she realized she’d messed up rows back and had to rip it all out.  Morgan was Kadan in the way she watched him paint on his Vitaar, obviously wanting to help but not asking.  He wanted to offer.  He’d seen her at alchemy, and knows she’s careful.  She’d deny it but she had a good eye for drawing, too.

She was Kadan in the way she always looked for him first when she entered the tavern. In the way the other party members changed but she always took him with her, no matter where they were going or what they were doing.  She was Kadan in the way she saved spices for him while traveling, knowing that even her favorite foods were bland by his standards.

She was Kadan in a way he’d never had before, not in Par Vollen, and not in Seheron. He might have said something to Krem. _Once_.  While _very_ drunk.  He wasn’t sure what Krem had said back exactly, but there had been a soft sort of smile on the kid’s face.  Even if she _was_ Kadan in the way other people might assume, it wasn’t something he would voice.  To voice it would be to end it, because anything more was beyond his power to give. 

It never ended well.

They had _told_ him.

And even if he _had_ wanted more—and he _didn’t_ —had wanted to tell her that she was Kadan to him, more than the Chargers, she didn’t want that.  She was happy as they were, and told him so.  She didn’t want romance.

So he lied. He’d always been good at it.

He’d been given the name _Hissrad_ for reason, after all.

           

 


End file.
